Exploring Magic!

{Potter Manor, Unplottable}

{7:43 P.M, 1 August 1991}

Alex frowned as he read through his skills tab. The Gamer body skill was a little bit nerfed, but he was expecting that since there were no Health points or any of its variants present in his status window.

'I only have a numerical representation of Mana, and the {Observe} skill is missing from the skills tab.' Alex thought. He looked down at his wand and the small window detailing the making of the wand, and its descriptions, followed by the boosts it provides appeared in front of Alex again. 

But the same thing didn't happen when he focused on his bed or anything else in the room. Only the glowing lamp beside his bed gave a response. The logic and the mechanics of this particular part of the gamer system seemed a bit sketchy, but he quickly realized that there was a common point as to when he was able to get more information about an object.

...

[Basic Runic Spell Lamp (Uncommon) {Lumos}: A very basic runic artifact that could power itself directly from the wards. Created by an unskilled enchanter who is just beginning on the path of creating runic schemes.

Light color setting {Locked}]

...

While there was a lot of useless information like who made this particular runic lamp. The lamp itself attracted his attention. It was common knowledge that electricity and magic didn't work together with each other. So Alex was assuming that inside the manor, which should be covered by a lot of wards, should have no electricity.

Throughout the day he had seen small bulbs that acted the same way as this lamp and he had originally chalked it up to Lily being a muggleborn, she must have figured out a way to deal with the problem of electricity and magic.

He didn't even really pay attention to the lamp and the only reason he was looking at the lamp was because he was trying to figure out if the info display thing was exclusive or not.

'So the runes are more integrated into the magical society than it was shown in the original books. But then again most of the early part of the story took place with either the Dursleys or the Burrow or Hogwarts. Hogwarts being a magic castle must have a lot more of these runes but if something like this was shown in canon then I must have chalked it up to Hogwarts doing Hogwarts things.' Alex thought.

With his memories of the books and the movies, he kept comparing whatever he was learning against his actual knowledge of the series. His mind immediately supplied the few things or places in the series that might have rather complex runic enhancements behind them but his mind had automatically chalked them up to Hogwarts magic.

'The moving stairs, the statue of the one-eyed witch, the giggling pear for the kitchen entrance. Hell, all the paintings might be able to move because of runes as well, that's why they are permanent.' Alex thought. The examples kept popping out into his head.

What conclusion did he draw? That Runes were far more important than he was giving it credit for and maybe he would have to look into working through them sooner rather than later. The world of Magic was fascinating and Alex really wanted to dive straight into it, but unfortunately, he didn't really remember all the incantations and wand movements.

'All I remember is the swish and the flick, and the LeviOsa...' Alex thought. He looked at his ample mana and decided to practice the levitating spell.

There wasn't anyone here now who could demonstrate the wand movement of the Levitation Charm to him. So he would have to waste some mana in case he got the wand movement wrong the first few times. He looked around the room but didn't find anything light enough, at least comparable to a feather.

'There must be a reason the students in Hogwarts were taught this spell in the beginning with just a feather. Although later Harry was able to levitate a cookie with the spell... or was it a pie...that was the levitation charm right?' Alex thought. The details weren't exactly clear but he knew he needed a light thing for a better start. 

The idea of tearing apart a pillow came into his mind before he dismissed it, if a house elf served the household then Alex would have gone through with it, but until now Alex had just seen Lily making all the food.

'Though there should be some house-elf in charge of the manor, no way Lily would be able to keep this whole place neat and clean otherwise. Or maybe she could...' 

You never really know with magic, he walked over to the table at the corner of his room and found a little black diary that was on the table. The similarity struck him but on the cover instead of 'Tom Marvolo Riddle', the leather cover was empty. Alex tore the last paper from the diary and since the diary didn't bleed he simply chucked it back on the table.

He jumped back onto his bed and placed the small piece of paper in front of him. He had taken a quarter of a page from the small diary so he had assumed that it would weigh similar to a feather.

With supplies secured, Alex gripped his wand and pointed it at the paper. 

'A swish and then a flick, and I need to pair it with the intent to make this paper levitate.' Alex thought as he took a deep breath and focused. He closed his eyes and moved his wand, imitating the movement to the closest he could remember from the movie. 

He moved his wand in a semicircular motion and then flicked it downward, his mana moved as he focused on levitating the piece of paper. Three different nodes around his body lit up as they sucked the surrounding mana flowing through the veins.

This was a lot different than what he was expecting but since he hadn't spoken the incantation, the mana that was sucked into the nodes left them as it continued flowing through his body.

'When I used the color-changing spell only one mana node activate, that was on my right palm and it sucked the mana from the mana veins. But with the levitation spell, 3 of my nodes became active. Does this mean this is a Tier 3 spell or was it something else?' Alex thought, but his questions remained unanswered as he repeated the process a couple of times getting a feel of how his mana moved.

"Wingardium Leviosa~" Alex cast, he felt his mana move as the piece of paper slightly fluttered before it slowly rose. Everything was fluid and Alex could feel his mana move as he guided the paper to move around with his wand. A couple of notifications once again appeared in front of him which he ignored as he watched the paper dance to his tune.

'This was surprisingly easier than I thought, I was worried that I would need a focused intent throughout the whole spell.' Alex thought. The intent was necessary when he first needed to activate his mana nodes. And as long as he focused even a little bit on keeping the paper floating, the levitation spell continued to work.

'How much focus though, I should be able to cancel the spell. At least it's not thought-activated, I need to probably intend what I want.' Alex figured, as soon as he willed for the spell to stop, he felt his mana stop moving as the paper slowly fell, gliding to settle down on the floor a couple of feet away.

Alex instantly switched his focus to the notifications in front of him.

...

[Learned new spell: Levitation Charm (Tier II)]

[+5 Exp]

...

[Levitation Charm (Tier II): Level 1 {12/50}]

[The Levitation charm was one of the simplest magic that used continuous mana consumption. One of the easiest tools to drain your mana at a lower level, the control and stability of the charm depends on the caster's focus.]

[Mana Cost: 3 Mana/Sec]

...

Alex hissed as he looked at the surprisingly steep cost of keeping the spell active, just using the spell for 12 seconds had drained him of 36 Mana, and with the rate at which the spell drains him the spell would completely drain his reserves in just 2-3 minutes.

'Using magic shouldn't be this hard right?'

...

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AN- The cost of a level 1 spell would be a lot higher than a level 2 spell, this is to simulate more of a real-like learning difficulty. With the gamer system, it would be easy for Alex to advance these spells, and the real challenge would be only there for advanced magic.

P.S. - A new week starts and I would appreciate it if you use your powerstones early, each one would let the story stay above in the rankings for a little bit longer and further allow more people to read it! Thank You!